


All The Difference

by syrenpan



Series: Only By Night [2]
Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout 4
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Friends With Benefits, Stubbornness, bad habits, it all turns rather mushy in the end
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-23
Updated: 2016-12-23
Packaged: 2018-09-11 11:37:53
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,479
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8978128
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/syrenpan/pseuds/syrenpan
Summary: Anon prompt on tumblr asking for “Come over here and make me" with Danse and Female Sole Survivor. Danse and Knight Beckie Elkins have been friends with benefits for a couple of months. But Danse makes them go through a bizarre ritual where one of the other has to quit the Brotherhood before he engages in sex, only to rejoin once they are done. It was funny for a while but now Beckie is fed up and she is not one to hold back.





	

Two months had passed since that rainy night when Knight Beckie Elkins had quit the Brotherhood of Steel just so she could have sex with her CO. He had magnanimously permitted her to rejoin at daybreak after they had made a right mess of each other all night. And since then either Beckie or Danse “quit” when they set up camp and went from Knight or Paladin to civilian so they wouldn’t do anything the BOS would disapprove of. 

Beckie found it funny at first but after two months the routine had lost its cheeky novelty and become an irritating chore. It was just uttering a sentence in the evening and one in the morning but -  _ come on _ \- it was so silly at this point. 

They stayed professional when in the field and as soon as they reached downtime, they couldn’t keep their hands off each other. Some of her settlers had started to ask questions regarding their relationship which, so far, Beckie had deflected with humour, knowing that Danse would most certainly not approve of them going public given the ridiculous ritual he made them go through all the time. 

So, when they found themselves at another abandoned cabin in the middle of nowhere at sunset - ghouls killed, door barred, traps set - Beckie said, “I want to fuck a Paladin!” 

Danse grinned at her, already taking his suit off. 

“That can be arranged, civilian.” 

Though the smug expression vanished from his face when she replied, “No. It’s Knight Elkins or General Elkins if you prefer, not civilian.”

Danse stopped stripping, the upper part of the suit bunching around his midriff. 

“I thought we had already established that General Elkins was out of the question?” he asked with a puzzled frown. 

“Knight it is,  _ Paladin _ !” Beckie confirmed, hands on her hips. 

Danse raised an eye-brow, “I don’t follow.”

“Oh, I think you do, you just don’t want to hear it.” 

He frowned and stepped closer until she had to tilt her head to keep eye-contact. A cheap trick, trying to use his height, but she wasn’t going to be intimidated, not by a few inches. She snorted. 

“Are you back to being obstinate and difficult? I thought we had left that behind us,” Danse growled, lowering his face closer to hears.

Beckie stared right back at him. “I’m done with your pretentious bullshit. It’s not like you can’t get it up if we just fuck without going through ten rounds of ‘I quit, you quit’,” she paused, eyeing him critically.

The muscles in his jaw clenched. He was breathing heavily like he did when he was angry or horny. Come to think of it, they hadn’t had a good fight since that night. The thought went like a heatwave through Beckie who understood that old habits died hard - even the bad ones, especially the bad ones, and nothing turned her on more than a good old-fashioned spat. 

“You’re being unreasonable. You know the regulations-“

“Fuck your regulations, Danse! Fuck them! If you want to fuck me.” 

“You are serious. You are actually serious,” he looked at her in surprise. 

Beckie shrugged and pointedly turned away to get her sleeping bag ready, ignoring the confused Paladin in the room. 

“Beckie!” 

She unrolled her bag and smoothed down the edges. 

“Beckie!” 

She started to hum a tune from her childhood under her breath and unzipped her suit, stripping it off her shoulders and wiggling out of it with her back to him the whole time, leaving her in her panties and a white tank top. 

“Knight!” That got her attention. She turned, a remark ready but it died in her throat. She hadn’t seen that scowl on his face in weeks but there he was - the old Danse, the stick-in-the-mud, glaring.

“Everything was fine until five minutes ago. I know you want me-” he began, but Beckie cut him off.

“Bold assumption! Tsk, you’re so full of yourself. You think fucking me for a few weeks means you know me? Get out of here!” 

He straightened up and shrugged, his face deadpan. “If that’s what you want, I’ll go. There’s an overhang 50 yards from here, I’ll be just fine.” 

Beckie sighed. “Then go. If your stupid games mean so much more to you than being with me, don’t let the door hit you on the way out.” 

He regarded her with narrowed eyes. “Okay, what’s this really about?” 

“It’s about you being ridiculous. As if one little sentence makes all the difference between us, how we interact.”

“If it’s no big deal then why are you so upset about this?” 

“I’M NOT UPSET!” she yelled and closed her eyes as soon as the words had left her mouth. 

“Clearly,” he said, pouring oil into the flame. 

Beckie’s eyes flew open, her mouth set in a grim line. She took a step forward and pushed him. She might as well have tried to push a wall for all the good it did, but at least her palms made a satisfying smacking sound when they hit his bare chest. 

“Please stop that!” he demanded. 

“Make me!” When she tried to smack him again, Danse caught her wrists before her hands could make contact with his skin, jerking her arms forward, forcing her hands together and resting them over his heart. 

She refused to look at him, still trying to pull her hands away. “Let go!” 

“I will if you promise to stop hitting me,” he replied with infuriating calm. 

“Like hell!” 

“Beckie-“

“Lemme go!”

“You’re right.” 

She stopped struggling and stared at him in shock. “What?”

He lifted her now unresisting fingertips to his lips and kissed them. It made her tingle. This wasn’t at all how she had envisioned this would go. She had hoped for a fight and a hard fuck like she used to have in a previous life with another man. Bad habits did die hard indeed, only Danse wasn’t having any of it. 

“You’re right,” he said again. “There is no need for us to go through the motions any more. When we return to the airport tomorrow, I’m going to inform Elder Maxson of our relationship and that it won’t affect our performance in the field. He might try and reassign you, and you can serve under a new CO if you want to, but I think we work well as a team and it would be unwise to break us apart, no matter our personal relationship.”

Beckie stared at him open mouthed. “What- I don’t-“

Danse leaned forward, brushing his nose against hers before he said, “I love you.” 

She gasped. Her first instinct was to pull away or bite that lush lower lip, but instead she tilted her chin and crushed their mouth together in a kiss that she felt all the way to her toes. This was a different kind of heat - warm, tender - she immediately distrusted it, and wanted more at the same time. 

When they came up for air, Beckie growled, “I hope you don’t expect me to swoon just because you’re going all sweet on me and finally drop that ritual of yours.” 

He grinned at her. “A little swooning would be nice,” which made Beckie snort. But his face grew more nervous when he added, “Or an affirmation of your affection for me, such as it is.” 

Beckie cocked an eye-brow. “I’m not going to parrot it back just because it’s true, you know.” Even just that sentence made her tummy flip. She felt like her world had turned upside down again, but with less blood and death and more - well - more Danse. That hot, uptight rock who calmly took all the shit she flung his way and returned it with firm but gentle kindness. At some point in the past few weeks, he had wormed himself under her skin and now she couldn’t get him out again. And worse, she didn’t want to. 

They made love that night, and it was making love, slow and caring. It took her a long time but when she got there in the end, it felt like letting go, like a gentle wave. It made her happy in ways she hadn’t expected. They dozed for a few hours after before she woke Danse up and provoked an argument that ended with him on his back and Beckie riding him until she shouted his name as she came - for old times sake because old habits died hard. And maybe having one didn’t mean she couldn’t have the other. 

“Hey Danse?”

“Hm?”

“I love you.” 

She could feel him grin against her shoulder. “I love you too.” 

Maybe a little parroting wasn’t all that bad, Beckie thought just before she drifted off to sleep with a smile on her face.

Because sometimes one little sentence can make all the difference after all. 

The End 


End file.
